Failure
by SteveGarbage
Summary: The Herald disappeared. The Inquisition broke upon the walls of Redcliffe. Ferelden and Orlais crumbled, the Inquisition shattered. The Breach expands day by day, swallowing Thedas. Josephine and Blackwall steal what little joy they can as the world collapses around them, lost to the Elder One. **A brief glimpse into the dark timeline of In Hushed Whispers*


A flash flickered through the windows, followed by another violent, deafening crash of thunder.

The stones of the Chantry trembled, every item on Josephine's desk rattling as the building shook for seconds.

The Breach expanded again, as it had done a few times a day for months unending.

Blackwall's strong arms squeezed her closer, her body trembling with fear. Her head rested on the muscled platform of his chest, her ear pressed to his heart as he cradled her close. She could hear the pace of his heart quicken, but she wasn't sure if it was fear or their embrace that excited him.

His hand lifted slightly, cradling the back of her head, his strong fingers combing gently through her hair. Blackwall stood straight and strong, as sure as ever, even as the world crashed down around them.

"I'm here," Blackwall cooed, a quietly comforting whisper. "I'm not going anywhere."

 _An army. Marching west. Get out._

Six words, all the scout had been able to scrawl out on the blood-soaked note before he sent it away. The bird had arrived two days past in the window at the Chantry, the small note rolled and clipped at its leg.

Nothing had come since. What precious few scouts were left were likely all dead.

All was lost.

It had been a year since the Herald infiltrated Redcliffe Castle. He had never returned. Nor did Leliana, or Cassandra or Varric.

The Inquisition had assaulted the stalwart keep three times. The Iron Bull fell and most of the Inquisition's army were destroyed in the first assault. King Alistair, Arl Teagan and the Fereldan army had broken upon the walls in the second attempt. The Venatori nailed the dead King to boards and planted him above the gates as a trophy of their victory.

Commander Cullen had rallied what remained of the Inquisition's forces, the Fereldan army and whatever mercenaries, sellswords, hedge wizards, patriots and pilgrims gold could buy. The Champion of Kirkwall had called his companions and his influence to him to join the final battle, too.

Cullen was dead. Hawke was dead. Teryn Cousland, dead. Arl Bryland, Arl Wulff, Bann Lanya, Bann Eremon, Bann Parth, all dead.

The causeway was so choked with bodies that they fell unceremoniously off the bridge, breaking upon the water and rocks below. Precious few had returned, the last gasp of might destroyed before the tall walls and strong gates of Redcliffe. No invading army had ever taken Ferelden without taking Redcliffe. And still it stood against them.

Only Blackwall and a smattering of soldiers returned, all gravely wounded, defeated, destroyed. Behind them, Ferelden was shattered.

The Inquisition began decaying with it. Sera abandoned the cause. First Enchanter Vivienne fell to demonic possession attempting to find another way to close the rifts. Solas had cryptically apologized, filled with sorrow, for his failures and left, claiming he was going in search of some desperate solution. He hadn't returned.

There was no one left to call. Empress Celene had fallen to an assassin's blade, Grand Duke Gaspard implemented in the murder. Orlais had been overrun by demons, an army ravaging the already war-weary nation with a legion of Grey Wardens behind them.

Tevinter had fully fallen to the Venatori, loyalist and moderate voices choked out, eliminated, replaced and destroyed by the apocalyptic cult. The Venatori had invaded Nevarra. The Marcher states had all withdrawn, preparing, fearing for the inevitability that they would be the next to be attacked.

The Inquisition had fallen, quickly, swiftly, completely. There was nowhere to turn, nowhere to run, no one left.

Except Blackwall.

"I'm scared," Josephine said, tears wetting her eyes, her fingers scraping against his heaving chest. There was no use for propriety now, no time for choosing words, playing the diplomat. It was just them, alone, amidst the rotting bones of the world they had gambled with and lost.

"I know." It was all Blackwall could say. He was just as fearful, as hopeless as she was, she knew. But even at the end, he maintained his armor, the stiff lip and sad eyes he had carried since the day he arrived in Haven.

He wore the garb of the Wardens, but he walked with the gait and strength of a noble. His posture, his speech, the way he drilled the recruits. They all spoke of a previous life, one he had buried long ago when he took the mantle of the Grey.

But his eyes, his eyes always looked so far away, so filled with a sadness that she could not reconcile them to the rest of him. She had introduced herself to him one day out of her own curiosity. He was an enigma she could not resist. Blackwall addressed her with such courtesy, grace, chivalry.

She had gone out of her way to procure several pieces of fine cherrywood when she found out he liked to carve, a hobby he kept despite the growing, swirling hole consuming the sky.

He had made her a small pendant from the wood, placed it upon a simple cord and sent it in a non-descript paper envelope.

She sent him a poem she had scribbled down when the pressure of their crumbling supply lines and fading diplomatic ties had stretched her to her breaking point.

She found a bottle of Orlesian wine from Val Royeaux upon her desk three days later.

Josephine had strolled out of the front gates under the pretense of checking in with Commander Cullen, but her eyes wandered to the forge, to where Blackwall toiled with Harritt and the others, struggling to equip the few men that remained.

The muscles in his shoulders rippled with each swing of the hammer, his face glistening with sweat, a look of stern concentration as he brought down each blow upon the metal, red and white sparks brushing past his coal black hair.

Blackwall's head turned as he wiped the sweat from his eyes with his forearm, those sad eyes seeing here there, looking in his direction. His head dipped just slightly, hardly noticeable as Josephine quickly averted her gaze, her heart fluttering and her cheeks flushing with red.

 _La splendeur des coeurs perdus._

The splendor of lost hearts. Always platonic. Always secret. Always distant. It was a self-flagellation, a longing and wishing that could never come to be. An eternal courtship, a tender dance that would never cease.

As the world had burned around them, with the ashes of the Inquisition settling around Haven every day and growing colder, they had reached a point when custom and impropriety no longer mattered. Orlais was little more than a charred remain. There was no nobility any more to object to unseemly interaction between the highest station of the nobility and the commoners below them.

There was still a black stain upon the floor where the glass inkwell had fallen and broken upon the stone as Blackwall lifted her upon her desk, their hands knocking items out of the way, Josephine haphazardly pulling her skirts up, grabbing him, pulling him forward and inside of her as his mouth caressed her lips and neck.

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and he drove through her, his muscled arms cradling her, yet his hands so gentle upon her back. She bit down on the padded cloth of his shirt, the quilted pleats tightly wedged between her teeth as she screamed in her passion. Missives, letters, treaties, pleas were all thrown out of her mind. There was only the tingling, throbbing, orgasmic sensations as Blackwall took her upon her desk in their moment of abandon.

There was no one left now but him to hold her and still her as fear engulfed the world, the dust falling from the ceiling as the Chantry rattled around them.

Outside the walls, there was shouting, bells being rung and horns being blown.

 _An army. Marching west. Get out._

Josephine squeezed Blackwall, her hands pressing him closer to her. "Don't go," she pleaded. She already knew he had to. He could not stand here, cradling her as the last embers of the Inquisition were stamped out.

Blackwall stroked her hair, his own fingers trembling as he tried to still her. "You know I must."

"I do," Josephine said, her eyes closed as she nuzzled into his chest, savoring this last moment together. It would be their last together. It would soon be their last, at all.

There was a moment of hesitation, Blackwall's hand stuck in the air, caught between the urge to hold her close and push her away and go. His body relented, his hands gently lifting Josephine from his grasp. There were tears in her eyes, but as she pulled away, she could see tears in his as well.

"I love you," Blackwall said. It was simple, straightforward. It was spoken the only way she expected it might. He was not fanciful. He did not make the grand display. He was constant. He was there. And he was hers.

"I love you too," Josephine said, the Warden craning his neck down to steal one last kiss, his lips quivering as he pulled his last breath from her lungs. He broke away as suddenly as he had come in, stepping back, pulling on his breastplate, lifting his sword and shield from the ground.

The war was at their doorstep, a battle there was no hope of winning. But they would fight to the last gasp.

"Those who are left," Blackwall said. "Tell them how we stood here. Make them know that we died on our feet, that we do not bend and do not break to this evil."

Blackwall placed his winged helm atop his head, pulled his sword slowly from its scabbard with long, slow, scraping wail and marched toward the gate of the Chantry, out to meet their foe on the field of battle.

Josephine inhaled. It felt like she had been holding her breath for hours. Her fingers quaked with fear, but she pressed her hands across the ruffles of her golden blouse, straightening herself as she might before going in to entreat with heads of state and important diplomats.

She sat at the desk, quickly grabbing the quill, dabbing it with ink and quickly scrawling her last message on as many small rolls of papers that she could.

 _The Elder One is here at Haven. The Inquisition is destroyed. Look to your own defenses. Do not underestimate this threat. Pray that the Maker delivers you salvation._

Josephine quickly swirled the pen, her fanciful signature the last testament on each note. She quickly rolled each, tying them with a small cord of thread and placing them aside.

The Chantry rumbled at explosions outside. There was clanging out steal, the screams of men dying, the wailing and shrieking of horrible monsters. The noises were growing louder. The din of battle was quieting. There wasn't much time left now.

She grabbed one final note, quickly drafting down the note that had been in her head for weeks now but that she had never dared to put to paper before. There had always been hope, a lingering shred of light she clung to, that they might be delivered and saved and she need not send this last letter. But even that flicker was gone. The time was now, or never.

 _Yvette,  
_ _I'm sorry. I've failed everyone. Take good care of Mama and Papa.  
_ _I will ask the Maker to protect you all.  
_ _All my love,  
_ _Josie_

Josephine wiped a tear from the corner of her right eye with the back of her hand and quickly rolled the note. She picked up the small bundle of papers, running out of her office to the postern door. The cage of ravens squawked loudly as she burst and she opened the cage, grabbing bird after bird, tying the fated messages to their leg and throwing them out the door into the smoke- and flame-filled air of Haven. The anguished cries of dying men, screaming and pleading for their lives were the only sounds left outside of the smoldering, burning town.

As the last bird took flight, she exhaled and turned back into the Chantry.

Everything was silent, her heeled shoes clicking loudly on the stone as she stepped back inside the church, the flickering flames outside casting dull, colored light through the windows. She took her place in the pulpit, just before the door of the now-defunct war room.

Her legs shifted, moving into stance just as she had been drilled upon for hours and hours in the university at Val Royeaux. She turned her hips, slightly to the side, a stance projecting confidence and subtle defiance. Her shoulders rolled back, her chin lifting just slightly so her eyes would need to look down on her enemy. She took slow, deliberate breaths, controlling herself so that she did not shake with fear.

Outside Haven had grown eerily quiet. No more bells. No more horns. There was a thumping noise outside, the whoosh of something large flying overhead, crackling wood and collapsing buildings.

There was red light around the edges of the doors of the Chantry, a high-pitched hum and wail before the wooden down creaked, crack and blew off their hinges in a burst of red magic.

The monstrous darkspawn hovered above the ground, his rotting, diseased flesh disgusting even in from where Josephine stood. Glowing red crystals jutted from the side of his jaw, red energy cracking over his body and arms. In his right arm, his long, clawed fingers were clutched around the head of a man wearing silver armor, dragging the corpse across the stone leaving a bloody streak behind. The tattered armor scraped loudly across the floor, a screeching that shot icy trembles through her as it wailed.

Blackwall's arms and legs were limp as the Elder One pulled him across the floor toward her.

It lifted its skeletal arm, a strength that deceived the look as the darkspawn lifted the bloody body as if it were filled with stuffing and tossed it before her. Blackwall's corpse hit the floor with a clang, the deep burning hole in his chest still glowing red hot where magic had punctured and melted his steel armor. He was covered in slashes and claw marks, his face cut and bloody. His head rolled to the side, his lifeless eyes still open, staring across the floor in death.

"Where is he?" the Elder One demanded, his booming voice so loud and fierce that it startled Josephine, shaking fear through her.

"The Herald of Andraste is not here," Josephine replied, her voice as steely as she could muster although her legs felt weak as she wanted to fall to the ground, curl into a ball and wait for the mage to kill her. "He is lost to us."

The Elder One floated higher, his arms outstretched as he lifted up, hovering over Blackwall's body. Josephine retreated a step as he descended, inches before her. The smell of rotting and diseased flesh was overwhelming. Nausea washed through her and she could feel her stomach lurch, the urge to gag and vomit strongly pushing through her chest.

"This so-called Inquisition is destroyed. Give me the interloper!" His voice boomed, the stench of rot so thick upon his voice that Josephine held her breath.

"He is lost!" she shouted back. Her voice was filled with fear and desperation.

The darkspawn's wicked hand wrapped around her waist, ripping her off the ground and lifting her high above his head. Josephine couldn't help but scream as she whipped through their air, her arms and legs flailing. "I will not be denied!" the Elder One raged, his fingers squeezing around her waist, incredible, crushing pain shooting through her.

"Maker… spit on you," she forced out between her teeth.

The Elder One turned in a rage, throwing her across the Chantry, her body slamming hard into the wall, the air forced from her lungs and her bones breaking in the impact. She fell into a heap on the floor, pain so striking that she could not move.

"There is no Maker," the Elder One declared, stalking over to her. "I am a Magister of Ancient Tevinter. I walked in the Fade, I saw the halls of the Golden City myself. And when I came upon the throne of the Maker, all was empty and silent."

Red magic swirled at in his hand, violent, pulsing, wild energy fueled by red lyrium. "The Maker is false. I will breach the Fade once more, I will once more walk upon the Golden City and I will claim that throne. All Thedas will bow and tremble before me."

Josephine pushed herself up, each breath agonizing fire, lifting her chest up just enough off the ground to a near-sitting position. She looked at Blackwall's body once more and remembered his words. The Inquisition would not bend and break.

"The Herald will return. And he will defeat you. Evil can never defeat good," Josephine said, her voice weak and blood spitting between her teeth as she forced out her final words.

Josephine did not feel pain as the powerful, red magic tore her apart.


End file.
